"I feel that the artist/poet has to be there to shape that raw material into something beautiful that can be absorbed on a visceral levelthrough the eyes and skin."

AMY GOH

SN: What are you currently working on?A: I’m combining my recent colour explorations (using ink wash) with my more complex ink practice to create bigger drawings that use colour in an expressive way. My ink work follows a very narrative angle in which I’m telling a macrocosm of stories interchanging and interlocking, whereas my colour work focuses on a single emotion or state. I’m trying to combine both to create expressive stories that are both complex and emotive.

SN: Were you always the class artist at school? Did drawing ever get you in any trouble, maybe drawing too much on the sidelines of assignments?

Yes, I was the class inker. I had a reputation for writing, drawing, and generally sprouting into strange, arcane things (a.k.a being weird). I was always doodling in black ink over all my worksheets and textbooks. I remember a couple of instances in which teachers told me assignments belonged to the school, which made no sense to me because in Singapore, we own our own textbooks. I made it a point to doodle on every inch of white space on my textbooks and if I was not doodling, I was writing out poems and thoughts. You could say I was an overambitious doodler.

SN: Your works convey a wave of dreamlike poetry in its simplicity, the minimalism. What inspires you to create?

A: I am glad you think so! I utilize poetry in my artistic practice, by which I mean that I express a certain tone or permutation of being through a finite and limited medium (ink). I feel that beauty of form is important in being able to encapsulate and express that. On one hand, I value the substance of dreams and the essence of memory but I also feel that the artist/poet has to be there to shape that raw material into something beautiful that can be absorbed on a visceral level through the eyes and skin.

On an aesthetic level, I am inspired by the minimalism of Japanese paintings and line art. Although, in terms of substance, I feel like I have so many inward worlds and dimensions that I want to express outwardly in some form. I am not so interested in creating just something beautiful, but in creating something that expresses the depth and capacity of who I am, which includes all that I dream, read, absorb, experience, live. As such, my motifs contain entities that are born, die, change, and evolve as I do as a person. My artistic practice is based on the metaphor of growth, or a garden: each element has their natural cycle of flow and fluidity.

SN: What is the typical process for an Amy Goh piece? Do you sketch a lot beforehand?

A: It depends on what the seed of the piece is. Some of my pieces are born from nighttime visions (flashes of image that appear to me), and I draw them out, although they change a lot as they are born on paper. Other times, I try to capture a feeling, a gesture, a turn of form of the body and I draw around that. The most important part of the drawing, for me, is the outward form. Once that is set, the drawing takes a life of its own and characters appear and tell their stories from my pen. That’s the fun part.

So no, I don’t really sketch a lot beforehand, mostly to get an idea of what the drawing is, but then I play with that. I never really know what is going to happen while I’m in it. It is a story unfolding before my eyes and I like that element of unpredictability, of channeling something familiar that is inside me yet foreign to me.

SN: What do you hope viewers feel with your messages and themes?

A: As I mentioned before, the central theme in my art is growth: the cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. I feel, as a being on this earth, that I am constantly shedding old skins and crawling into new ones. I have so many knots to untangle in my past, yet I also have so many chapters to create in my future. In this very present, right at this moment, I possess a depth of stories from past lives and also the potentiality of future selves waiting to be born. I want to express that pain is part of change and integral to evolution. Some of my characters are in flames or being consumed and others are in hibernation, dormant, pregnant, or birthing. Yet, regardless, they all manage to change, sprout, burst out of previous shells into a plethora of new beings. They are constantly in motion, coming into being. The many figures in my art are in a way all facets of one being, which is a psyche that is constantly changing.

SN: Are the faces in your works anybody in particular, or are they a "character" or guide you utilize in order to express an emotion?

A: I feel like all the faces in my work are fragments of a central character, which is the core psyche in my work. I am not sure if that is me, my higher self, or a general feminine archetype. I do feel like I am part of it, but I do not feel like it is attached to my identity, if that makes sense. I feel like who I am consciously is one small element of who I am as a larger consciousness which includes things higher and deeper than what I can sense or perceive. When I draw, I feel like I channel that larger consciousness into my work.

SN: Emotionally, what kind of ideas are you interested in conveying?

A: I am interested in the spectrum of emotions we inhabit and also what can result from them. Even though I express some difficult states of being in my work, I always make sure there is a doorway, a way out. I feel that all difficult states exist for us to move through them in order to evolve to a higher level of awareness. The ability to be self-aware, I think, is crucial in being able to process deep trauma and darker emotions.

SN: Are you often satisfied with your work? Are you ever surprised by a finished piece?

A: When I first started drawing, I was overly critical of my work. But then I realized that the part of me that was critical-- the ego voice-- was a small portion of how I felt in relation to my work. I had to learn to push aside that discomfort and embrace the fact that I make mistakes or that my work is never what I imagine it to be. Once I let go of that expectation and let the work define itself, I was able to love the creature that I had birthed as one would a child. I feel that way about my art. They are sort of my children. Often, they make me want to tear my hair out or they turn out completely different from what I expect. Other times, things move smoothly and the birthing process is easy. I’m always surprised by what appears, though. That keeps me creating.

Favourite colour?Deep red or the darkest blue of the ocean.

Music to create to?Immersive music, anime soundtracks, or podcasts about anything and everything.

Drawing or painting?Ahh, that’s difficult. I feel like drawing is more masochistic but painting is joyful play.I am drawn to the discipline of drawing and the looseness of painting. Combining both hits that sweet spot.

What would you do without art?​I’d probably be writing, teaching, or engaged in some kind of healing modality, because I feel that desire to expand and help others heal. I’m not sure what though. I’d love to be a yoga practitioner or some kind of teacher. Although nothing stops me from doing all of those things in addition to being an artist and writer, ha!